


on the steps of the capitol

by lagaudiere



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 13:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7173500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lagaudiere/pseuds/lagaudiere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe Dameron is a Washington DC reporter covering the presidential campaign between General Hux and Leia Organa. Politics are never pretty, but when an anonymous informer gives him the biggest story of his career, things get complicated, especially when he has unexpected chemistry with his source.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on the steps of the capitol

The day after the Republican convention, Poe Dameron wakes up in his office surrounded by six empty paper coffee cups with the worst headache of his life. And that was before he remembered General Hux's acceptance speech. 

Nobody in the history of the Republican Party could remember a candidate quite as bad as Hux, who was running to succeed Snoke with every bit as much threatening rhetoric plus a younger, better looking face on the same old vague fascism.  
  
Poe couldn't remember a Democratic candidate better than Leia Organa, but sometimes qualifications didn't mean much. Leia couldn't get away from scandal and shady family connections, and that was after her ex-husband had stopped talking to the press.  
  
No doubt about it, Hux is going to win. Poe’s just glad he doesn’t work for the kind of newspaper where he had to keep his mouth shut about resenting it.  
  
He tries to remember if there was any reason to get off the floor of his office, and realizes his phone is stuck to the side of his face.  
  
Peeling it off reluctantly, Poe looks at the screen. It was displaying his most recent three emails. The first is from his editor at The Resistance, Jessika. It doesn’t have a subject line, which means it will be about something Poe doesn’t want to do.

  
The second is from Rey, his intern. Rey is one of those kids who knew all about social media and is always filming things on her phone; she was only nineteen and hadn't even been to journalism school, but her blog had exposed so many incidents of business corruption in her hometown that that the Resistance had assigned her to Poe anyway. They probably pay her about $10 a week. Poe had never met anyone who loved her job more.  
  
The third email address he doesn’t recognize. It doesn’t have a subject line either, which is immediately suspect. Poe opens it.  
  
Mr. Dameron,  
  
I understand if this communication seems a little suspicious, but I need to speak to a member of the press. I have a story for you, but it needs to be confidential. Can you meet in person? I saw you on CNN and I thought you seemed very trustworthy.  
  
Sincerely,  
_FN-2187 (code name)_  
  
Poe sits up reluctantly. He got a lot of emails with story tips. Most of them meant nothing, but most of them also didn't come from someone using a code name.  
  
Sure, the email read like it had been written by a teenager pretending to be a spy, but it could still be important. Even if its writer had only seen him during a reluctant appearance on CNN.  
  
Just as he starts to reply, Rey's voice piped through the door. "Poe? I sent you a draft of my story?"  
  
"Come in," Poe says, finally getting off the floor. "We have a lead to pursue."  
  
***  
  
He replies to the email asking the source where they want to meet, but there's no immediate response--the source wants to talk in code. So Poe and Rey go to the office to find Jessika.  
  
"Are you kidding?" she says bluntly. "Dameron, you know how I feel about anonymous sources."  
  
"He wouldn't necessarily be anonymous," Poe protests. "Here, I'll show you the email."  
  
He hands her his iPhone and she skins through them, looking skeptical. She probably has a reason to be. Everyone who works for the Resistance thinks it's the best paper in the country. Everyone who doesn't thinks it's a socialist, anti-government rag.  
  
That means Jessika has plenty of enemies, and there's a good chance that Poe would be walking into a trap set by Internet trolls at best.  
  
"I think we should give him a chance," Rey says. "He sounds scared. There's a reason for that."  
  
Jessika sighs and hands Poe his phone back. "Give him my address," she says. "I'll set up the meeting. In a public place."  
  
_Hi Finn_ , Poes writes, _can I call you Finn? It seems easier to remember than FN-127._  
  
My editor has a PGP code. I am definitely interested in meeting up but she wants to talk to you first. She can set up a meeting with you. Can you email her at jessikapava@theresistence.net?  
  
Thanks,  
Poe  
  
He gets a response almost immediately. It says simply :) !!!  
  
***  
  
Rey can't stop shooting him glances over the top of the paper she's sitting with in the corner.  
  
_Act natural_ , Poe texts her quickly.  
  
She's supposed to be here half in case anything goes wrong, half as a learning experience. Rey still has to work on the "secrecy" part of investigative journalism. She quickly hides her face behind her newspaper again.  
  
Poe takes a measured sip of his coffee. It's getting cold. He doesn't want to show it on his face in front of Rey, but he's starting to worry that the source, the person he's already started thinking of as Finn.  
  
Another text pops up--from Jessika. It's just a question mark.  
  
Before Poe can respond, another drink is set down on his table.  
  
"Mr. Dameron?" the owner of the drink says. "I'm Finn."  
  
Poe's eyes immediately dart to Finn's coffee cup before he spins the writing away; the name matches. He's also drinking hot chocolate.  
  
"Nice to meet you," Poe says.  
  
There's no way to train for a lifetime of getting information from people who don't want to share, but Poe likes to consider himself an expert. It starts with learning to read people.  
  
He's younger than Poe would have thought, mid-twenties maybe, crisp dark suit, a consummate DC professional. They practically manufacture them on an assembly line. Broad shoulders, cropped hair, but with a look in his eye that lacks the usual combination of steel and loathing that most people in politics have when they're talking to him. Something about his face is sweet, even though Poe can tell there's no particularly warm emotion being directed at him. Poe thinks that maybe in another context he would ask Finn, or whatever his real name is, for his number.  
  
The main way Finn looks, besides attractive, is nervous.  
  
It's a mostly empty coffee shop at a time of night when most people don't buy coffee anyway, but Finn still looks nervous. He keeps casting glances at Rey, face completely hidden behind the paper.  
  
"She works for me," Poe says, on instinct. Maybe he's wrong to trust so easily, but sometimes all he has to work with is a feeling, and he has a good one about this man. "So what do you do, Finn? Government work?"  
  
Finn takes a deep breath. "I work for the NSA."  
  
Poe nods like he was expecting that and takes another sip of coffee. He's not taking notes or recording, and he hopes that makes him seem less bloodthirsty, which he's been called a few times. "And you think you have a story for me?" he says.  
  
"I can give you documents," Finn says.  
  
"I would love to read them," Poe says. "But I need to ask a few questions first."  
  
Finn's sweating a little bit. Poe tries to put him at ease, keep the situation natural. “I'm just wondering why you're doing this,” he says. “We all know Snoke isn't fond of whistleblowers.”

Finn closes his eyes like that isn't the half of it, like he seeing something Poe couldn't even imagine behind his eyelids. “No,” he says. “People have died.”

“They have?”

That's a shock. That's not the kind of thing that happens in America. That, Poe thinks, can't possibly be true.

“I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do,” Finn says, rolling past his stunned expression.

A lot of people have said that to Poe in the time he's worked in DC. In his experience, it's rarely true and never the only reason. People are selfish. They want things.

He stays silent, because often that's the best way to get people to talk. He watches Finn, eyes never wavering from his.

“And I'm scared,” Finn admits after a long moment. “I'm scared of them.”

“Well,” Poe says, “I can understand that.”

Finn’s face breaks into a relieved smile. It's so bright--what people talk about, Poe thinks, when they say “like the sun”.

It's obvious he's wanted someone to understand for a long time.

“Thank you,” Finn says. “I saw you on that CNN show, you were talking about the Death Star program.”

Poe laughs. “I try to, uh, stick to calling it a military satellite.”

Finn chuckles a little bit too. “Well, I could tell that you really cared. That you were passionate. I don't see that a lot.”

It’s flattering. It’s exactly what Poe wants to project. And it’s true; it’s nice to be noticed for that. He cares so much that sometimes it’s all he can think about.

“Thank you,” he settles on saying.

Finn shoots him a quick smile. “I bought a burner phone,” he says. “You know. So we can talk.” He slides a tiny scrap of paper across their table. “You should get one too, text me the number.”

But Poe still has one question.

“Is there anything you can give me now?” Poe asks. “A lead we can pursue, something we can try to verify so we know that you're telling us the truth.”

“I have something,” Finn says. “But you can't release it. Not yet.”

Poe nods instinctively.

Finn reaches into the inside of his jacket and for the briefest moment, Poe excepts to have a gun pointed at him. But it's only a single piece of paper in minute type, on State Department letterhead.

“It's a personnel file,” Finn says, but it still takes Poe a moment to find the name. When he does, he has to suppress a gasp.

It's Leia Organa’s son.

From the corner, over the top of her paper, he sees Rey’s eyebrows raise.

 

***

 

“This could destroy her campaign,” Jessika says. “I don't know, Dameron, this concerns me.”

Poe scoffs. “Since when are we a partisan outlet? I'm not in the business of making sure the Democratic candidate doesn't get hurt.”

Jessika frowns deeply at him. He's always been a little intimidated by her; Jessika is probably the smartest person he knows, and she knows how to use that intelligence like a weapon.

“I just want to know if this guy is some conservative kid with a grudge,” she says.

“Finn says that when we get the files they'll be more information on Hux than on Organa,” Poe says. “It's not a partisan thing.”

He’d had to put aside his own admiration for Leia Organa for a moment while reading the file, but he believed Finn’s intentions were good.

He’d known that when they met, that Finn had a moral compass. A lot of people in Washington didn’t, but Poe could tell - Finn wasn’t the type to foster a grudge or try to influence elections for the wrong reasons. He had a good heart.

That didn’t mean this would end well.

“Anyway, is this her fault?” he says, tapping the document lying on Jessika’s desk.

It’s the personnel file of Ben Solo, codename Kylo Ren, the black sheep young son of the candidate, who works under the supervision of her opponent.

But according to this file, Ben Solo isn't just an agent. He's one with a long history of behavioral problems, sudden fits of rage, who has apparently been kept on at the explicit request of General Hux.

Even more than that, Poe is interested in another line in the file. Solo is the head of a program that’s referred to in the file only in the most vague of terms, as Project Sith.

“I'll call my CIA contacts,” Jessika says. “If I can verify even some of this--I'll call you.”

Poe can't resist a grin. “Thank you,” he says. “It's going to be worth it.”

Jessika swivels her head back to her laptop and waves him out.

 

***

 

Poe watches the next presidential debate alone in his apartment, scribbling notes that only half make sense even to him.

The moderators can't stop asking Organa about her brother, as if her fault that Luke Skywalker has disappeared completely from public life. He was always an eccentric philanthropist, and nobody could say that the Skywalker family, rich and powerful as they’d always been, was a very functional one.

Glancing back at his file, Poe thinks that if he was related to Ben Solo, he might want to disappear as well.

General Hux steers the conversation back to military power. He's wearing all black, pale under the TV lights. Poe wonders if he would look so menacing if he didn't know how many secrets he must have.

“These are times that need strong leadership,” Hux says. “We cannot appear weak to our enemies. We cannot project an image of fear.”

Fearmongering rhetoric, Poe scratches down on his notepad.

“Pardon me, General, but I don't think anyone disagrees that we need a strong military,” Organa interjects. “It's just that its actions must be taken with the consent of our Congress and the American people.”

When his phone rings, Poe immediately reaches for his iPhone, but it's not that--it's the burner phone Finn gave him.

Poe grabs it so quickly he almost topples over. “Hello?” he says. “Hi, this is Poe Dameron?”

He’s cursing himself for the awkwardness, but on the other end of the line, Finn laughs. “Hey,” he says. “Nice to hear from you again.”

“Well, I think I'm actually hearing from you.” Poe’s rearranging his tone into the suave and charming one that he works so hard on.

The thing about Finn is, he clearly works just as hard on that polished look, but he always sounds genuine. Can't help it.

“I just, um, I wanted to know what they thought,” Finn says. “About our project.”

Poe thinks carefully about his phrasing. “They're interested, we’re pursuing it,” he says. “You'll hear from my boss.”

He can almost hear Finn’s smile. “That's great! Really great.”

“Look,” Poe says, and it's half a sigh. He runs a nervous hand through his hair and gives up on the caution. “You know you're gonna have to protect yourself when this happens, right?”

“Right,” Finn says.

“We can't let you stay anonymous. You have to be prepared to look at some harsh options. It could be, you know, leave the country or go to prison.”

There's a long silence on the line, then an exhale that crackles with suspense.

Finn answers him surprisingly calmly. “Right.”

  
***

  
Jessika’s sending sending another reporter to pick up Finn’s files, because she thinks it would be too suspicious for Finn and Poe to be seen together in public.

Poe’s never been involved in something that necessitated that level of caution before, and he can't figure out how to deal with it.

Rey comes over to his apartment and sits on the kitchen counter talking about coding apps, a topic Poe never understands.

“What if this doesn't work out?” Poe asks her nervously. “Do you think there's anything worth reading in those files?”

Rey looks up from her phone and just shrugs. “I trust Finn,” she says. “I have a good feeling about him. You should be asking if what's in those files is going to make any difference. Maybe no one but us will care.”

Before Poe could process that, both of their phones dinged at the same time.

“It's Jessika,” Rey says. “Let's find out.”

 

***

 

The documents are... well, there doesn't seem to be a word to describe them that isn't cliche.  
  
They're explosive. They're earth-shattering. They're beyond all of that, and if the Resistance publishes them, Finn's life is going to change forever, and so is Poe's.  
  
The documents are proof of a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top of the administration and involve the Republican nominee for president. None of it could be excused, brushed aside--it was a plan for surveillance of every American citizen, laid out in the language of anti-terrorism.

Strike fear into the hearts of the people and break down their resistance. Authoritarianism. That was the heart of Project Sith.

  
Development of secret technologies, Poe scribbles on his legal pad. Collaboration with corporations. Invasion of privacy. 

Poe’s pinned names to the wall of his office at home, connected together with strong like any crazy conspiracist in any movie. There's President Snoke, General Hux, Phasma from the NSA, Ben Solo, codename Kylo Ren. No one in the administration will come away from this looking good; maybe no one in DC.

  
Finn said people had died. Somewhere in these files, in language so veiled he couldn't yet understand it, was evidence of murder. 

Poe became a reporter for the reason most people do, because he wanted to make the world a better place. In college, he read a book by this famous journalist who covered the Anakin Skywalker administration, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Kenobi used to call the administration, maybe jokingly, “the evil empire”, and that was before the president’s son disappeared.

Poe knows what he meant.

  
This will define his career. It will define his life. It's more than he could ever have dreamed of uncovering, and it's terrifying.  
  
He gets another text from a number he doesn't have programmed into his phone.  
  
"Can we meet up again?" it says. "I can answer any questions you have."  
  
Poe texts back, yes, email me, and Finn just replies with another smiley face.  
  
***

  
Poe feels a little bit like a skeevy politician meeting up with his latest mistress about it, but they meet up in a hotel room.

He can't stop thinking about Finn. That's not necessarily a bad thing. All the best journalists are obsessive. He should be preoccupied with his source. 

This isn't like other sources, though. He hasn't done any research on Finn - yet - but he wonders about him. A lot. There was something instantly likable about him, and Poe couldn't picture him sitting in an office typing away and making the kind of decisions in that file, the kind that ruined people’s lives.

When Finn gets there, he slides his plastic hotel card into his pocket and steps through the door slowly and hesitantly, eyeing the files Poe has spread out across the floor. Poe must look a little wild-eyed. 

“Hey,” Finn says. “You good?” 

“So you understand how big this is,” Poe replies. 

“Yeah,” Finn says. “I get it.”

“Okay, explain it to me.”

Finn stares at him. 

“Explain it to me,” Poe says. “I want to know that you really get it.”

Finn coughs a little, awkwardly. Poe watches him adjust his cufflinks. 

“Okay,” Finn says. “I'll explain it. Here's how it works. I go to work in the morning, and my boss hands me a file. It has the name of an ordinary American in it. Could be some college kid who’s got too many ideas about politics, could be someone who talked about terrorism too often on the phone, could be some guy like you. I get on my computer system, which no one outside of my department fully understands, and I figure out everything that's available about that guy. I learn his whole life story. I get enough data on that guy to track his movements, where he goes every day. I hand that file to my boss and she hands it to Ben Solo and General Hux. That don't like what they see, that guy’s life is gonna be over.” 

Poe takes a deep breath. “Do you mean that literally?”

“Yeah, sometimes!” There's a slightly wild look in Finn’s eyes. “It's in the documents.”

Poe shakes his head, disbelieving.

“Extrajudicial killing,” Finn says, like he memorized the phrase. “You know what I did right out of high school?” It's obviously not rhetorical. Poe shakes his head. He still doesn't know Finn’s name.

“I joined the Coast Guard,” Finn says. “I wanted to help people. Save lives. And then I just wanted to, you know. Serve my country.”

He sounds embarrassed by it.

A moment of awkward silence falls, and Finn’s chest is heaving. Poe gets the feeling that he’s not used to speaking that much, ever.

Poe pops the cap of his highlighter. “We’re going to save lives,” he says. 

Finn takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves, and grins.

 

***

There'll be dozens of stories eventually. Poe has to prioritize. 

The first drafts are the hardest things he's ever had to write and the best things he’s ever written. Jessika completely tears them apart.

He and Rey sleep in the office or don't sleep at all. This is the kind of thing a news organization could sit on for months to years. They have to rush it, though, get it out far enough ahead of the election that there's time to publicize it, time for people to think. Before it's too late.

He doesn't hear from Finn. Mostly he’s too busy writing to worry, or at least that's what he tries to convince himself of. There are obvious reasons why Finn wouldn't make contact. No news is good news. 

Well, he has to admit to himself, that's not true. No reporter believes that. When he let himself, he thought about Finn, about some sniper rifle on a D.C. rooftop pointed at his head.

 

***

 

Rey sticks her head into his office late in the evening, about time to consider whether to go home and get a change of clothes so he can stay the night, and says, “You need to call Finn.”

Poe, head bent over a file, snaps up his head with a start. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He groans. “Did Jessika say something about when we met at that hotel? Nothing happened, we just fell asleep because there were so many documents to go over…”

Rey cuts him off with an incredulous look. “Um, Jessika said to meet with him to talk about how we’re going to reference him in print, but wow.”

Poe resists the urge to slam his head down onto his desk. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I’ll call him.” 

“Sounds like you have bigger problems,” Rey says breezily, and with a brief pause to swipe a cinnamon candy from the bowl on his desk, she waltzes out.

Swearing under his breath, he searches through his bag for the burner phone. Jessika is right, they need to talk about Finn’s role in this. Much as Poe hates to say it, he’ll need a name. They’ll need a background check. 

He makes the call, and Finn picks up on the first ring.

Poe quietly runs through a list of places nearby that would be open at this hour and sufficiently full of tourists that no one would pay much attention to them. 

“Meet me at Hawk and Dove,” he says. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

 

***

 

“I don’t really drink,” Finn says awkwardly at the bar. “I mean--” He pauses awkwardly, clearly self-conscious. “I’m not, you know, opposed to it. I just never did that much.” He shrugs. “I guess I’m kind of a rule-follower. I don’t know.” 

Poe slides him one of the two beers he’d ordered anyway. “You’re breaking plenty of rules now,” he says. “That’s cause for a celebratory drink.” 

“Here’s to that,” Finn agrees, and raises his glass. They clink their beers together and Poe takes a deep drink; Finn takes a noticeably smaller one. 

“If I’m being honest,” Finn says, “this tastes terrible.” 

“If I’m being honest,” Poe replies, “I just ordered the cheapest thing on the menu.”  

Finn laughs, and Poe can’t help joining in. But when the laughter fades away, there’s an awkwardness between them that Poe doesn’t know how to dissipate. 

“My boss sent me to talk to you about your real name and what we’re going to call you in our articles,” he finally says. “I know that’s kind of an awkward topic.” 

Finn deflates immediately, his shoulders slumping.

“I know what could happen to me,” he says. “That doesn’t mean I’m excited about it.”

Poe sets his drink down with a clink that seems oddly final.

“We don't have to talk about this tonight,” he says. 

Finn shoots him a surprised look. “We don't?”

“I mean…” Pos decides to spit it out before he can lose his nerve. “Why don't we just go somewhere, think about something else for a little while? Like normal people.” 

“Sounds nice,” Finn says, wistful but skeptical. 

“Come on,” Poe says, standing up and making the decision before Finn has time to reconsider. “I'll show you my favorite place in the city.”

 

***

  
"This is your favorite place in DC?" Finn says. "The Library of Congress?"  
  
Poe laughs and sits down on the steps, motioning for Finn to follow. "Yeah, uh, it's not open right now so maybe that wasn't the best idea, but I don't know. I love the idea that this place has all the most important writing in history all together. Like any problem you needed to solve, there would be an answer there." He shrugs. "Preservation of knowledge. Kind of the opposite of the rest of this town."  
  
Finn tapped his fingers on the stone steps a little nervously. "Yeah. I get that."  


“I kind of forgot that it would be, um, closed at this hour,” Poe admits.

“They probably don't let you have open containers in there, anyway,” Finn says, knocking his beer bottle against Poe’s playfully.

“True,” Poe says, “but here we are in the presence of truth. Spiritually, anyway.”

 “Truth and beauty,” Finn says, and Poe wishes that investigation could let him know exactly what that means.

He settles for falling silent, drinking the rest of his beer, and and hoping that Finn will throw him a conversational line.

“I love everything about this city,” Finn says eventually. “I grew up here. Used to look at the White House and think, someday I'm gonna work there.”

“I'm sorry,” Poe mutters, and the genuine sadness he feels for Finn is suddenly crushing. “You're a hero. You know that, right?”

Finn doesn't respond right away, but, leaning back on the library steps, he finally shrugs off his jacket and undoes his ever-present tie. 

“The hard thing about all this,” Finn says, and falls silent for a moment. “Is, I really like you.” 

“I like you too,” Poe says, but he knows how it sounds, more mournful than hopeful.

 “Are there, like, rules about that kind of thing?” Finn asks. “For journalists.”

“We’re allowed to like our sources,” Poe says cautiously. “As people.”

 “You know what I meant,” Finn says, and Poe feels himself shiver. 

“I think this is an extraordinary circumstance,” Poe says. 

“So would your editor be cool with it,” Finn says, “if we made out on the steps of the Library of Congress?”

 “Probably not,” Poe says, and pulls him in amyway.

 

***

When Poe rolls out of bed the next morning, he avoids his phone. He showers, gets dressed, and pours a cup of coffee, leaving it on his bedside table, trying to think of nothing. 

_Are we good?_

Then another one a little later, when Poe doesn’t answer it. _Sorry if I did the wrong thing. I really like you. I wish it wasn’t like this._

 No one would be monitoring this conversation now, Poe thinks wryly to himself. There was nothing more mundane than the romantic fumblings of two people who had the wrong timing, the wrong circumstances and bad communication.

 He stares at his phone over his coffee cup. He hadn’t told anyone, even Rey, who really deserved to know, or Jessika, who would be incensed.

 _I really like you too_ , he replies.

He taps his fingers on the desk anxiously, trying to think of what to say next, and eventually adds, _We’re going to going to work something out._  
  
***

“We’ll publish it,” Jessika says. “You have to trust me, Dameron.”

She’s sitting across from him with her most steely glare affixed firmly on her face. 

“I’m not worried about whether you’re going to publish it,” Poe says impatiently. “I got a hang-up phone call this morning. That could have been something tracking my phones.” 

The phone call was the only concrete thing he could point to, but his feelings kept getting worse. He thought he heard rustlings outside in the bushes outside his apartment building at night. He kept checking for signs of break ins and bugs on the phones. Rey tells him he’s being paranoid. She’s probably right.

 Jessika frowns. “You’re not saying anything over the phones.”

 “I’m not,” he protests, “but we need a solution here, Jess. Rey and I have been too directly involved. And Finn--”

 “I’m concerned about that,” she interrupts. “What’s happening with Finn? You didn’t get me a real name?”

 “I will! He’s not going to have any problem telling me.” He shakes his head slowly. “We just need a plan, Jess.”

Finally she gives him a small smile. “Make a plan,” she says. “You have my permission.”

***

He invites Finn to his apartment. It’s the stupidest thing he’s ever done, from any logical perspective.

Finn looks around at the small space, and Poe suddenly feels terribly self-conscious. 

“You have a lot of books,” Finn says, gesturing at them like Poe might not have noticed.

The shelves are mostly covered in them a miniature library of treatises on history and politics he's acquired over the years. That, in combination with the apartment’s general disarray, speaks clearly to how Poe spends most of his time. Most people would say it indicates an obsession.

 “I do,” Poe replies.

 “I think they look, uh, pretty cool,” Finn says. “I should borrow some of them sometime. Learn about this stuff.”

 Poe smiles, relieved. “Any time you want.”

 He sits down at the kitchen table, squeezed in between a stove and a fridge, and debates pulling some of his many files out of his bag. But when Finn sits across from him and Poe sees the frightened look in his eyes, he knows where they should start.

 He doesn’t reach across the table for his hand, though, even though he wants to. “We need to decide what you’re going to do after the stories come out,” he says.

 Finn’s eyes squeeze shut immediately in response, as if he's fighting off physical pain. “I don't know what to do.”

 “How invested are in staying in the US?” Poe asks. “Any family, anything like that?” Just asking reminds him him how little he really knows about Finn.

 “I’m a foster kid,” Finn says. “Don’t really remember my parents.” He grins self-deprecatingly. “All I really have is my job. Great decisions I made.”

 “You didn’t know,” Poe said quickly.

 Finn smiles. “Come on,” he says, gesturing around at Poe’s books. “I bet some of these guys guessed.”

Poe can't help but laugh. “That's fair.”

“What can you expect in America,” Finn says ruefully. 

Sitting across the cramped kitchen table from him, talking about this, feels somehow more intimate than the night on the library steps. Poe has been cursing himself for getting in so far over his head, but maybe, he thinks, they're here because neither of them could do this alone.

“There's a lot of world out there,” Poe says.

“Are you leaving too?” Finn asks him.

 When Poe thinks about it, he realizes he can't picture letting Finn leave for a far-flung life in exile alone. 

“I think I’ve had enough of this city,” he says, and reaches for Finn’s hand.

 

***

 

It’s not hard to come up with a plan to get out of the country. Poe memorizes the speech he’ll give to customs. He’s taking two of his friends to see the sights and visit his father in Guatemala - he’s lucky to have duel citizenship. There’s something suspicious about that.

Jessika had insisted on remaining behind in the US; it was impossible to pull her away from her editorial desk in Washington.

The rest of them have few enough roots to pull them up and start over, Poe hopes. Someday, depending on who wins the election, they may even come back.

Finn stows one small bag in the overhead compartment and eyes his seatbelt with suspicion. He had confessed to Poe that he had never been out of the country before. 

Rey, who was endlessly enthusiastic about air travel, had claimed the window seat and is already logging in to the plane’s WiFi.

Sitting between them, Poe leafs through a selection of airport magazines featuring Hux and Leia’s faces. He feels less nervous than he expected; they've done all they can, and the choice is in the voters’ hands now.

Finn notices Hux’s scowling face too. “Hope we’re across the border before he sees my resignation letter,” he joked, but it’s lighthearted, and Poe sets down his magazine to take his hand. 

“I'm glad I’m doing this with you,” Poe says quietly, and Finn grins broadly back at him.

 “Couldn't be happier.” 

Rey's hand waving in front of Poe’s face quickly breaks into their moment. “Dudes,” she says, voice vibrating with excitement, “we have an important e-mail.”

“From who?” Finn asks, snapping into focused mission mode before Poe does. 

Rey leans in and speaks in an exaggerated whisper. “Luke Skywalker,” she says. 

Poe and Finn immediately look at each in shock. “Not what I was expecting,” Poe manages to say. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be taking off in a moment,” the announcement starts to say.

  
Finn bursts into laughter. “Next big story,” he says, eyes locked onto Poe’s. “I can't wait.”


End file.
